The spice of life: Cinnamon cools your stomach

Adding cinnamon to your diet can cool your body by up to two degrees, according to research published today. And the spice may also contribute to a general improvement in overall health. The research has been published in the journal, Scientific Reports.

Project leader Distinguished Professor Kourosh Kalantar-zadeh, from RMIT’s School of Engineering, said the results of the study, which used pigs, seemed to show that cinnamon maintained the integrity of the stomach wall.

“No wonder cinnamon is so popular in warm regions as taking it makes people feel better and gives them a feeling of cooling down.”

The research is part of a bigger study at RMIT into gut health using swallowable gas sensor capsules or smart pills, developed at the University.

Kalantar-zadeh said gut gases were the by-product of digestion and could provide valuable insights into the functioning and health of the gut.

“Our experiments with pigs and cinnamon show how swallowable gas sensor capsules can help provide new physiological information that will improve our understanding of diet or medicine.

“They are a highly reliable device for monitoring and diagnosing gastrointestinal disorders. They will revolutionise food science as we know it.”

Scientists at the University of Melbourne and Monash University also contributed to the paper, entitled “Potential of in vivo real-time gastric gas profiling: a pilot evaluation of heat-stress and modulating dietary cinnamon effect in an animal model.”